YOU NEED TO IDENTIFY, ASSESS, AND PRIORITIZE THOSE POTENTIAL SITES WITHIN YOUR COMMUNITY THAT COULD BECOME TERRORIST TARGETS.
BY LEONARD DEONARINE, CET, OHST
Terrorism is not an individual, a country, a nationality, a race, or a religion. Terrorism is a technique of war used to inflict casualties, disrupt lives, and create panic for the enemy. Although this form of warfare has been used around the world for years, we have only recently experienced acts of terrorism on American soil. As America’s first responders to terrorist attacks, the fire service must help the nation prepare for both domestic and international terrorist attacks through the application of counter-terrorism measures.
Counter-terrorism includes any activity intended to prevent, deter, or mitigate a terrorist attack. Whether we want to accept it or not, the fire service has a major role in counter-terrorism.
THE LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENT’S ROLE
What can a local fire department do with regard to counter-terrorism? Initially, you need to identify, assess, and prioritize those potential sites within your community that could become terrorist targets. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on local industrial facilities that can be attacked to create a community impact similar to the release of a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).
The information collected under the Risk Management Program (Section 112 r of the Clean Air Act) should provide an excellent starting point. Using the information collected in compliance with the Clean Air Act, the facilities with a potential for a significant chemical release can be identified. If a facility possesses the potential for accidental release that could yield a large number of casualties, it could also be the target of a simplified terrorist attack to generate an intentional event with a high casualty count.
Be Involved with the LEPC Plan
The senior staff of the fire department should be directly involved with the community’s Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC). LEPCs were mandated and created as a result of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. Each community’s LEPC is charged with preparing and maintaining comprehensive community-specific emergency plans. These plans should take into account the possibility of an intentional release or fire and the possibility of the use of WMDs. If they do not, update the plan.
Partner with Law Enforcement Agencies
Fire departments and EMS emergency response agencies need to improve their lines of communication with local law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agencies should share information on credible threats and response preparations with the fire department. Simple threat communication protocols can be used to make sure all agencies responding to a suspected terrorist incident are aware of the potential and are taking appropriate measures to protect their personnel.
As fire departments and EMS responders are given access to sensitive information, they become partners with the law enforcement community to protect that information. Those entrusted with information that could help a terrorist should not divulge it to anyone.
Preplan Worst-Case Scenarios
As responders, you should know the exposure pathways for and limits of the chemicals that could be involved in the 10 worst-case industrial chemical release scenarios you manage. You should know how to access information on all the hazardous occupancies within your community or response area. You should be prepared to explain-in everyday terms-the potential acute and chronic health effects of exposure to these chemicals should a release occur. This knowledge base should also include (1) the potential products of combustion that could be produced if flammables within a facility catch fire and (2) the toxicity of these products.
Identify methods for mitigating the unique hazards of a terrorist attack on an industrial plant, and make sure that adequate resources will be available.
Develop a strong incident management system, which is critical to successfully managing any terrorist event. Directing and controlling responders are critical to operational success. A strong centralized scene isolation and control plan will be needed early in the event. Responder accountability systems should track the activities and locations of all on-scene personnel. Immediately notify local, state, and federal authorities if terrorism is suspected. The incident management system will allow for the orderly transfer of responsibility and scene control as additional agencies and resources arrive. A transition to a unified command structure will eventually occur. Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the lead federal agency for terrorist incidents, its representatives will ultimately lead the unified command team.
PLAN “B” THINKING
As you prepare to respond to a terrorist event at a chemical plant, refinery, or other high-hazard industry, maintain what I call “plan B thinking.” Most firefighters have had some experience in responding to calls where everything went wrong-the first-out engine wouldn’t start or a critical piece of equipment was missing or out of service. You still got the job done and put the call in the “win” column. During a terrorist attack, the perpetrators may be working against you to prevent you from quickly mitigating the incident. They might be watching your response to study your routes of travel and apparatus staging areas. They may destroy, remove, or booby-trap on-site resources by taking actions such as capping kits, fire hose, or isolation valves. Plan B thinking means that you need to have a communitywide inventory of emergency equipment at your fingertips.
Plan B thinking means that you are prepared to see the results of a vapor cloud explosion when you arrive at the front gate to the industrial facility. Fire pumps, which are normally located at a remote location from the plant’s operating units, will likely survive. But the water supply system may be “bleeding out” because many of the hydrants and fixed fire suppression systems were destroyed. The “terrorist-ready” fire department will refer to the facility’s water supply blueprints and begin to isolate breaches in the system by closing control valves to restore the water pressure to a usable level. Photographs taken immediately following plant explosions often show that much of the facility survived the initial blast. However, small fires spawned by the explosion grew and burned the plants down after the explosions.
IF ALL ELSE FAILS
You may encounter a situation where you can do nothing to mitigate the event. The terrorists may have exploded a bomb that has created a significant toxic vapor cloud. Threats regarding secondary devices may have been received and the fire department may be unable to enter the area pending an “All clear” after a bomb search.
Although you cannot mitigate the release, you can mitigate the event. Senior fire department officials can reach the public through television and radio. You can give the people in the community shelter-in-place or evacuation instructions. Since public radio stations and television reach only a portion of the community, the fire department may have to again rely on its partnership with the industrial community. Many chemical plants have a “ring-down system,” which uses a computer that has the phone numbers to all the homes and businesses in the community. The plant uses the system to communicate with its neighbors on an issue that may draw the community’s attention to the plant (road closures, excessive use of the safety flare, unusual plant odors or releases, for example). The fire department may be able to use the system to notify the community of special hazards and protective actions they need to take.
Software
Fire departments should turn to chemical-release plume modeling software. If the software is unavailable in your local office of emergency management, you may find it at other local industrial plants. The software may be able to predict the vapor cloud’s location, direction of movement, and time of arrival at a target occupancy and its concentration and health hazards. Specially trained members of the fire department can be dispatched to key occupancies (schools, hospitals, prisons, government buildings, and businesses) in the predicted path of the release to prepare the facilities to ride out the event.
Alternate Means of Communication
Develop alternatives to radio communications. It could be as simple as sending a page to an officer to contact the command post by phone. If the facility has a plantwide phone system, communications or command personnel can be assigned to the plant’s communication center to receive confidential field reports. The restricted use of portable radios is always wise when explosives are suspected. Additionally, restricting the use of portable radios prevents the terrorist from knowing how you are progressing toward controlling the incident.
PROTECT YOURSELF
Events at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have emphasized the positive role model of the American fire service. We need to look to the lessons taught by the terrorists that have plagued Israel and Ireland. It is common in those countries to set off a bomb to bring the emergency response forces to ground zero. Sometimes, once the responders are assembled at ground zero, a secondary device is detonated, killing many of the responders. A prime example of this terrorist technique is the January 1997 Atlanta, Georgia, abortion clinic bombing incident. Responders should consider establishing command and staging areas distant from the initial target area.
Terrorism is not an individual, a country, a nationality, a race, or a religion that can be eliminated. Our role is to prevent, deter, and mitigate terrorist attacks.
LEONARD DEONARINE, CET, OHST, a 25-year veteran of the fire service, is senior vice president and deputy fire chief of Industrial Emergency Services, L.L.C., in Corpus Christi, Texas. He previously served as a career firefighter and fire officer with the Montgomery County (MD) Department of Fire and Rescue Services and as president of HazMat TISI and of Exodus Training Services. He has a degree in fire science from Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland and is a certified environmental trainer and an occupational health and safety technologist. Other certifications include U.S National Emergency Preparedness Response Officer in nuclear, biological, and chemical events trainer; incident commander for marine firefighting; Texas Department of Health emergency care attendant; and U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue boat crewman.
